Childhood Emotional Neglect
An important component of childhood emotional neglect therapy is delving into your family of origin. This is critical because it is the underpinning of how we negotiate our current world. Much of what is experienced as children happens outside of conscious awareness, however the child brain knows exactly what to do to protect you and how to do it. Therapy for childhood emotional neglect focuses on figuring out how your previously adaptive and protective behaviours became maladaptive and are consequently interfering with your quiet peace, enjoyment, and vitality.
Often childhood emotional neglect and recovery from narcissistic abuse are interconnected. Narcissistic Abuse can present in many different forms, and may have been present during formative development. When a parent is either blind to your feelings or intolerant of what you feel, you very quickly adapt in order to belong. Living with your own feelings partially walled off is painful and challenging. The emotions– which should be connecting, motivating, stimulating, and guiding you– are not available and thus cannot do their job. You find your world less bright, less vivid, and less interesting than the world you see others enjoying. You want to know what you are missing.
Therapy can help you heal those wounds, reconnect to your emotions, create understanding and compassion for your experiences, and carve out new ways of relating to the world. We do this through conversations that provide the nurturing “serve and return” that perhaps was absent throughout your childhood; providing psychoeducation around how your brain and body store information and experiences, as well as how relational interactions are so formative; and engaging in somatic and experiential therapy to help shift your narrative and provide a healthy foundation for connection and relationship.
